I'm a little drunk right now. I've been drinking this wine since I came home from work around nine. And fiddling with my crystal wine glass, making it sing to me. And listening to Nick Cave.I really want to turn it up way loud and dance around the living room, but I don't think my brother and the people who live above us would appreciate it all that much.

AND IT'S INTO THE SHAMEAND IT'S INTO THE GUILTAND IT'S INTO THE FUCKING FRAYAND THE WALLS RAN RED AROUND MEA WARM ARTERIAL SPRAY

hee!

And I just managed to spill wine all down my front. I am the embodiment of grace, I think.

This album, Henry's Dream, is probably my favorite from him. And such as it goes, I constantly lose my copy of it. To the point of having to buy it several times. My first copy, which actually wasn't my copy at all but really belonged to tony_s got eaten by a dog. And then we put it in the microwave to see what would happen. Those were the days of LSD and roses, I reckon.

I should probably go to bed. I don't have many cigarettes left and if I stay up, I don't think they'll last me until tomorrow. I only have eight regular cigarettes and seven cloves, from the pack I bought with Joanna a few weeks ago. And I can't smoke seven cloves or I will DIE in a burst of death. My days of art school pretention smoking cloves like that are long behind me.

Ok. I sleep.

Oh wait. Brother, My Cup is Empty is playing. I have to stay up for that.

It was Amanda's last day of working with us and we needed to hold a wake. This involved copious amounts of whiskey sours for me (and damned if that particular bar doesn't skimp on the motherfucking cherries) and even more Jack-and-diet-Cokes for Amanda and Joanna.

There was an awful amount of singing going on between the three of us and the Engineer seemed a bit rankled by having us in his car for the ride home. Especially when we spilled into WaWa for fountain sodas. Drunk singing in a convenience store in the middle of the night when there are police around does not make for a happy Engineer. The cop ignored us, thankfully. Probably realized that the Engineer couldn't possibly be intoxicated while around three obnoxiously drunk women.

I'm going to sell you on eBay.Under what heading? "Drunk Bitches! Low Reserve!"

At a local food place, there is an alcoholic drink called the Tarantula Spiderbite.

It contains Jose Cuervo and many other yummy things. It also comes in a heavy glass goblet roughly the size and shape of my skull. Without the aid of a long straw, I need two hands to drink out of this container.

One and a half of these monster bitches downed and I will begin debating whether the English language is evolving or devolving based upon the usage of the word 'tatts' (for tattoos). Loudly. And with great gusto. With a drunken, Republican lawyer.

I never knew the phrase, "I will not idly stand by and watch some knuckle-dragging moron dry assrape the English language." would so swiftly silence three tables of people and various passerby. oops.

I think Joanna is still laughing about this and it's been almost three days.

This weekend has been basically quiet and without note. My brother is away in Las Vegas. I spent Saturday night after I got home from work cleaning because the Engineer drove up to North Jersey to see some old high school friends of his. Today, we went to the bookstore and I bought the new China Mieville and another book called, "Four and Twenty Blackbirds", which looks rather promising. I also had the distinct displeasure of standing next to some hoity-toity Marlton/Medford wifey in the new nonfiction releases section.

"Have you seen Hostel yet?" She said to her companion. "I hear it's absolutely wonderful. Of course it would be, Quentin Tarantino did it."

This caused me to seethe and pee myself with hilarity, all at the same time. Seething, because Quentin Tarantino did not "do" Hostel. Eli Roth did. He wrote it and directed it. Tarantino produced it. Big difference. I'm a big fan of Eli Roth, he also did Cabin Fever and that is one of my favourite horror movies. Peeing myself with hilarity, because I would pay rather large sums of money to be in the room when this uptight Coach-dripping bitch actually watches Hostel. From everything that I've heard so far, the first half hour of the movie is very similar to softcore porn and the rest of the movie is straight up gore. They used 150 gallons of fake blood for this, which is three times the amount they used for Cabin Fever. If you've never seen CF, then you wouldn't quite realize how mind boggling this is.

In addition to a trip to the bookstore, we also went to the hippie store Whole Foods, which is a grocery store I love like I'm receiving a paycheck to love it. They finally had the wonderful chocolate pudding I am so addicted to, instead of that vegan pussy carob bullshit that's been on the shelves the last few times I've been there. Carob is no proper substitute for chocolate, I don't care who says so. It is simply unacceptable.

So I happily bought real chocolate pudding and many other nifty food items I've been wanting, but no T42, which is a glorious bottled organic iced tea (made with organize cane sugar instead of fucking corn syrup) that I would have injected into my veins if I only could. It is exactly like the fresh brewed iced tea that my mother used to make for me., I could very well make it for myself if I weren't so goddamn lazy, but, damnably, I am and that will always be my downfall.

I've noticed that since I've started making an effort to eat more organically, I'm feeling quite a bit better, physically. My immune system is still dreadfully compromised and will remain so until I'm able to start seeing a doctor again on a regular basis, but overall I have more energy and I'm not feeling so sluggish. I'm attempting to keep my chemical intake (and non-whole foods intake) down to cigarettes, diet soda, and the occasional food product I have to buy because of limited income or availability. Pre-packaged shit is right out the fucking window, although today I discovered that Annie's makes a product similar to Hamburger Helper, just without all the crap in it. I bought two of them to see if they're any good.

Another benefit is that my brother appears to be afraid of organic food and refuses to eat it. He's incredibly picky about the stupidest things and despite the fact that I argued with him for almost a solid thirty minutes, he still can't quite grasp that the organic milk in the fridge is, indeed, just milk and not some strange soy or rice bullshit (which is not allowed over my threshold).

I am going to karaoke tomorrow night after work with my favourite co-workers. I will be singing 'Fairy Tale in New York' by the Pogues, with Amanda doing the drunken Shane McGowan parts.

I am going to drink good bourbon and smoke too many cigarettes. I am going to laugh loudly and tell inappropriate stories. I am going to goad Joanna into singing something wretched, so that I may have ammunition to torment her with at a later date.

This will be the first time I've sung in public, in front of a large group of people, in a mighty long time. This will also be my first time singing karaoke. Knees knocking, but I will do it.

Booze makes you popular and heals all wounds!

That Pogues song is my ultimate Christmas song and pretty much the only one I will tolerate being played or sung in my presence. I have drank great amounts of whiskey, with large and rousing cheers from my ex-roommates and I, to that song. And I have wept quietly, completely alone and in the dark, on Christmas eve to that song.

I think I have an ant in my ear and it's making me crazy with paranoia.

This may or may not be true, I can be sure of neither until I produce said insect. What I do know is that I have freshly blacked hair, courtesy of thee Pumpkin Girl, and my name on the guest list for tomorrow night's Stellastarr show. Hooray for me!

Friday started off my Week of Birthdays (tm). A few of my co-workers and I gathered at a local bar, out on the deck in the chill night air, and proceded to drink ourselves into something resembling oblivion. Sexuality in all its myriad forms was discussed, which is what usually happens when you get the group of us together, and I was pleased to discover I could shock even those people with a particular revelation of mine.

Scandal!

Lewis Black is on the Daily Show, as I type this. My heart, she goes pitter-pat.

I have cheese and crackers on a plate next to me, with some thin sliced pepperoni and onion blossom horseradish dip. I could happily live on cheese and crackers for the rest of my life, if I were forced to do so, but only if I could switch up the kind of cheese and cracker that I had to eat. Right now I'm eating some terribly pungent New York white cheddar (extra sharp) and harvest grain Wheat Thins, but I could very easily change that to farmer's cheese (polska) and saltines.

Last night, Joanna and I ran gleefully through a heavy rainstorm with the cheering of strangers in my ears. A bartender offered me a giant pile of napkins to dry off with and I attempted to make myself look presentable, hoping that the rain had not caused my eyebrows to pull a vanishing act. The rest of the night was spent with Malibu rum and diet Coke coursing through my veins, catching fireflies off my drinking companions' arms, and toasting the birthday of my co-worker with endless shots of some Irish whiskey who's name I can not remember. Flicking damp cigarettes over the ledge of a balcony, discussing the finer points of Paul's hand in the spread of Christianity. Drunk ethics and giggling discourses on genital shaving.

I leaned back in my chair and dizzily watched the night sky, marvelled to myself that this was the most human I'd felt in ages.

I fell in an asphalt hole today. Sitting here now, in ghost-printed boxer shorts and a wifebeater and my hair in dirty braids, I look like an eight-year old with a skinned knee. At least I had decided to wear a slighter longer skirt to work this morning, as opposed to the red and black plaid schoolgirl one I love so much. The torn stocking and slightly bloody skin was hidden from my co-workers. O, the private shame of the graceless.

I've been spinning through life with closed eyes, these past few weeks. Saturday night, I played bumper cars with a shopping cart and two of my best girls. We ate far too much chocolate and drank rum mixed with fruit punch and ginger ale. The only things missing were little, paper parasols. Hell, we would have accepted even plastic cocktail swords, but naught turned up. The next morning, we ate Chinese food for breakfast and I left the house without my eyebrows. I magpie-sang and twittered. I bought ridiculous and unneeded accoutrements.

Do you see this glass? It's got strawberries in it. Nobody's getting classier drunk than me, except maybe the queen of England!

Four-thirty in the morning found us half-closed, but straggling on the edge of laughter and tears.

After passing out falling asleep on the Engineer's couch, I stumbled back downstairs to where my brother has his ass parked on the computer. He took one look at me, with my askew pigtails, and started snickering.

Are you fucked up?ummm...no.You look fucked up.I was fucked up, but now I'm woke up.

I've eaten a bowl of soup and drank half a bottle of stolen sweet tea. I'm feeling a bit more human. Granted, my pigtails are sticking up at non-Euclidean angles and I'm sure half my make-up is smeared across my face from sleeping curled in a ball with my head under a couch pillow, but I am once again mostly among the living. And now wideawake, thrice-damn it.

That was some of the most glorious sleep I've had in a long time, though. I don't recall dreaming, which was nice because my dreams have been so convoluted and strange and unsettling as of late, but instead floated in a quiet bliss. I'm going to attempt to regain that state in a moment, by sprawling across my bed with the fan blowing lazily across my bare back and the blue glow from my stereo thrown up on the ceiling.

Tomorrow will be a partial work day, followed up by a visit from Thee Pumpkin Girl, who I miss like a missing thing misses things.

Four drinks later and a giggling drive home, my voice is almost shot from whiskey, far too many cigarettes, and attempting to shout to my co-workers over a rather mediocre guitar player who told us he didn't know any Pogues. The guy asked for requests, we obliged. It's not our freaking fault he's no taste in music!

It's an absolutely gorgeous day outside and I'm stuck in my office. In protest, I have been playing happy hardcore all day long. It is incredibly ineffective, since Angel called out today and there is no one to be bothered by said happy hardcore. This "Fuck Happy!" track is probably one of my absolute favourites, because it's got, like, two billion beats a minute and the only vocals are "fuck happy!" and "bullshitbullshitbullbullbullshit!"

Very intellectual, don't you know.Well, I like it. So, screw you.Tell it to the Cheat!

In all my life, I don't think I've ever received three bottles of MD 20/20 as a congratulations-your-mom-had-a-life-insurance-policy before.

Until yesterday. Banana red, orange jubliee, and that nasty-ass original grape flavour that I'm going to wind up pawning off on anyone who will take it.

Not only did I receive three bottles of Mad Dog as a congratulatory present, but they were given to me in a fancy gift bag.

Been mucking around with Dreamweaver for the past few hours, in an attempt to get the MWC website in some kind of condition resembling presentable (unlike what it appears to be now, which is quite assy). A moment ago, I looked up from my labour and saw that it was half past one in the morning. An interesting phenomenon, time loss.

It's beginning to look half-decent and I really don't want to stop what I'm doing, but the hour growth and all that.

Last night, I got spin-headed on various kinds of ice wine and cheap faux-champagne. The ice wine was nice, especially that terribly expensive bottle TAL got for Mr. Ellis for his birthday a few months ago (which we finally opened last night), but it's a bit too sweet for me to get a good drunk with. I started to feel a bit queasy after my fifth glass and thusly, laid off the booze for a bit until I returned to the faux-champagne.

My best behaviour was quite evident, at least until almost everyone left. That's when I started to get shitty and riled up, thanks to a few pointed comments by those left in attendance. I growled, flailed my arms around, and spoke in hyperbole. I am prone to these things, even when not drinking copious amounts of alcohol.

Olives stuffed with anchovies. Who would have thought it? I could only eat a few, couple with chunks of farmer's cheese, before my body started to rebel. I love salt like a woman pining for a lost lover, but that was skating up against the edge of overkill.

Unfortunately, I was unable to wear my party dress for this get-together. I worked a full shift on Saturday and only had a handful of moments to feed and medicate my brood of animals before having to leave for Rowan's house. We were said that I wasn't dressed in finery, but my every-day clothes are fine enough for party presentation.

Despite the fact that my family doesn't really celebrate Easter in a good year, let alone a bad one like this, I almost had a full set of blood relatives in my living room this afternoon. The live-in brother was here, as usual, then the other brother came to the door to pass the pipe and talk about basketball and cars. My father, not their father, was on his way and I was a bit tense at the idea of the other brother being in the same room as him (for reasons that I don't even fully know), but his Tara's-father-is-coming sense must have kicked in, because he left not five minutes before the old man showed up.

My family...eh.

It's not that I don't care we're so scattered and far-flung, coasting around each other like dead and orange leaves. I do. Moreso, it's probably a case of me just learning to stop being so stressed over it. We are what we are. Nothing will change that, ever. My brothers and my father are all the blood-family that really matters to me, anymore. My mother's side of the family are cordially invited to walk a fucking plank since none of them have seen fit to contact me since Mom died, in November. My brothers' family, I don't know them at all and they're not even actually related to me in any true manner, other then by association. My father's side are all so much older then me that we're strangers, except for the only daughter (who I now work with). Strangers to the point that I bumped into a cousin of mine from that half at the vet's office during a Major Tom's tumour visit and almost didn't recognize him. I knew he was family, but was a bit unclear about his name. Luckily, it was embroidered on the shirt he was wearing, enabling me to call across the office to him. He immediately recognized me, however. And knew my name. Then again, I stand out from the lot of them (on both sides).

All of this serves nothing but to remind me that it's high time I fed the ancestors. Vodou-speak, if you'll forgive that. Ask and I'll explain readily, but I'm not up for typing it at this moment. This moment is for going to bed, which is what I'll be doing as soon as I'm finished with smoking my cigarette.

Combine seven disgruntled abortionists (four of which pussed out for parts unknown early in the evening), two boyfriends, 20 margaritas and a metric fucktonne of highly tasty Mexican food.

Wackiness ensues.

What also ensues is a three-hundred dollar tab, one MIA cell phone (mine, might I add), and some mighty feisty shit talking.

Joanna and I shook hands when we discovered that twenty margaritas had been consumed. The two of us were probably the ones who ordered most of them. Amanda helped some, but she switched to dirty martinis and then Victory brand beer (lager? I have no earthly idea).

I'm a bit irritated at being unable to find my cell phone, but it's possible that I left it in my office. That will be found out tomorrow when I drag my sorry ass into work.

It would appear that I am beginning to develop rather expensive tastes.

A couple of weeks ago, my father let me try a glass of champagne from a bottle he had sitting around from last New Year's Eve (2003). Pierre Jouet. Real champagne, not that California "sparkling wine" bullshit. And it comes in these fabulous bottles with hand painted white flowers on. He has a tradition, handed down to him from his mother, of buying a bottle of this wonderful and glorious stuff (which runs about $65 or so for just the bottle, but he and his mother always bought the gift set, which comes with a set of hand painted champagne flutes, and that will run you around $100-120) for New Year's Eve.

Last NYE, he barely touched it. My father is more of a Budweiser and Black Bush whiskey man and not so much for the drinking of fancy-schmancy champagne. He had a glass of it, then re-corked it, and stored it away. We got to talking about it the last time I drove down to his house and he wondered if the bottle was still any good, because if not, then he'd have to go out and get another.

I, in all of my self-centered nefariousness, came up with the brilliant idea of busting out the bottle and letting me try a glass. Just to see if it was still good, you see. All in the name of paternal love, I was going to drink a glass of something that could potentially be really nasty. And flat, on top of that.

He got out the bottle, which had been kept cold this entire year, and poured me a glass in one of the fancy hand-painted flutes.

And. It. Was. Heaven.

I haven't had anything that beautiful in my mouth in a very long time (I know I left that one wide open, but don't even think about going there). It was like...words can't even describe, but I can truthfully say that I could drink it for the rest of my life and touch nothing else. Immediately, I held out the flute and asked for more. My father, being the charitable soul that he is, refused my request and put the bottle away. hrmph.

Real champagne had been something that I never really had before. I think I might have had it at my wedding, for the traditional bridal toast, but I don't really recall drinking anything quite that nice. And if it was actual champagne, then it didn't hold a candle to the Pierre Jouet.

Now I want more, despite the state of my empty pockets and bank account. I was going to buy my own bottle for NYE of this year, to hoarde all to myself and let no one else near it, but I just couldn't swing the price.

Last night, I had the opportunity to try a couple other brands of champagne at Rowan and Ellis's house, during our celebration of Ellis's birthday. Some of them were very, very lovely, but none of them quite held up to my memory of the Jouet. It didn't stop me from drinking a massive amount of it and a champagne drunk is like no other drunk in the world. Some things came out of my mouth that don't normally come out of my mouth in polite conversation or mixed company, much to the Engineer's chagrin.

We did have a good time, however. Rowan had bought a cake from Sweet Eats bakery (who I would recommend to everyone on the planet, if they had one near them, which they probably do not), which almost was the size of a child's paddling pool. Huge chunks of it were given to the Engineer, the Amazing Larry, and I to bring home. I had vowed to have some for breakfast, because chocolate cake for breakfast is one of my favourite things in the world, but I didn't get up until about noon and had no time for breakfast as I needed to drive to Delaware for a cigarette run. I did have a large piece of it after dinner and was unable to finish it because it was just too much for me.

Despite what the size of my ass tells you, I am not one for a lot of sweets. Salty, spicy, bitter or sour tastes are the ones I prefer, though I wouldn't ever turn my nose up at some good dark chocolate. Sweet tasting things are ok, but after a while, it begins to get a bit cloying and I can't handle that.

Another new taste I seem to have developed is Thai food. I had tried it a couple of times, usually on my birthday when everyone would take me to Thai Orchid (again, another place I would recommend to everyone on the planet) and had always liked it, but never knew of any place closer or less expensive. However, there are not one, but TWO Thai places close to my office and we frequently order it for our lunch. I've gotten the Engineer addicted to this as well, which eventually led to me making my own Tom Kha (coconut ginger soup) this evening, after we came home from the MWC meeting.

It was made from a packaged Tom Kha soup base, because I'm not about to start getting all complicated just yet, but I added a few things to it that I remembered seeing in the bowl when we ate it before. It's currently sitting in an enormous pot on the back burner of my stove, cooling off so that I may ladle it into a container for storage.

I am well on the way to having a bordello-style bedroom. This pleases me very much. First, my bedroom. Then, the rest of the apartment. Photos will be forthcoming, as soon as everything is completed. Be prepared to see a thousand shots of my famous eight-foot long leopard print couch, which I miss horrendously.

This weekend was spent shopping for things that I needed and haven't been able to get prior to this because I have been a bit broke (my loan refinance finally went through), helping drink seven bottles of wine at a party last night, and knitting like the devil.

If I ever manage to knit anything other then a scarf or a bag which has construction similar to that of a scarf, I will drop dead in amazement. Nothing else really strikes my fancy, not to mention that I just don't have the skill required. I don't plan on ever having said skill, either. It's just not something that interests me all that much, nor do I have the patience (or the time!) for it. Therefore, I am quite content to endlessly knit only scarves.

Currently, I'm working on one for Auntie Rowan (who already knows about it). The four I made earlier this month were distributed on Friday at my company holiday party, much to the envy of all those who went scarf-less. Angel wore hers all freaking day, despite the fact that it was a shade of purple and she never wears such a colour. Or so she says. I say it's a lie, because I've seen her in a purple shirt. She just doesn't want to admit to it.

The holiday party went rather well, to the surprise of myself, despite the potential for a shit-tonne of bitchcraft. The holiday bonuses, excuse me, gifts were handed out and I didn't hear any complaining, though that doesn't mean it didn't happen. The person who had me as their pollyanna gave me a gift certificate to MAC, so they aren't quite as evil in my eyes as they used to be.

The MWC holiday party, I refuse to say Yule, also went quite nicely. This is where I helped drink seven bottles of wine, two of them being ice wine, which I never really liked all that much before. We got loud and ate entirely too much party food, which I am still feeling the effects of.

Roll the ball. Roll the ball. Roll the ball.

urgh.

Now, I do believe I'm going to put one of my sets of new sheets on the bed, then get some sleep. Maybe read for a bit.

Well, the party didn't go bad and my head didn't implode from boredom.

It was actually one of the most beautiful and interesting houses I've ever had the honour of seeing. Three stories. Two hundred years old. And one of those staircases you see in movies. The kind found in apartment buildings, when someone is thrown down through it. You can stand at the bottom and look straight up and see the wooden railings spiraling up. Fucking grand.

And the best bathtub in the world, on the second floor bathroom. One of those old claw footed jobs that make me wish I could live in water.

I drank wine and made friends with the mastiff that lived there. Strange for me, as I'm not usually into big dogs. And strange for the dog as well, as her owner kept commenting how attached she was to me all night.

Three in the morning, three glasses of wine. Much laughter and talking, after the rest of the party had left. I was told how cool it was that I wanted to be a mortician, that I had the calmness of self to be in such close proximity to death.

It's given me a new drive and determination to be the kind of person that these lovely people thought I was. I was asked what made me want to pursue that career and for the first time in person, I told the truth.

Well. Most of the truth. There are some truths that never leave my lips and see the light of day. And you'll never drag them from me. Not ever.